POPwrap

ABSTRACT

A new concept combining bubble wrap and wrapping paper placed into a new and more fitting context. A wrapping paper constructed of appropriately-designed bubble wrap that is wrapped casually, creatively, and even wildly around a gift and presented at celebrations to children and adults to tear apart and pop in any number of ways. The combination of two typecast concepts: bubble wrap and wrapping paper into something new, POPwrap™, placed in a new and more fitting context of celebration, fundamentally changes the traditional concepts of both into a fun, exciting, taboo-breaking, relevant, inexpensive, and contextual product of limitless proportions.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of provisional patent application Ser. No. U.S. 62/247,227 filed 2015 Oct. 28 by the present inventor.

BACKGROUND—PRIOR ART

The following is a tabulation of some prior art that presently appears relevant:

U.S. Patents Patent Number Kind Code Issue Date Patentee 3,142,599 1964 Jul. 28 Chavannes 5,681,203 A 1997 Oct. 28 Arnold 5,795,644 A 1998 Aug. 18 Delarosa 6,283,762 B1 2001 Jul. 4 Wiggins 6,978,561 B1 2005 Dec. 27 Hunter 20100143614 A1 2010 Jun. 10 Holodny

U.S. PATENT APPLICATION PUBLICATIONS

Publication Nr. Kind Code Pub. Date Applicant

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

Foreign Doc. Nr. Cntry Code Kind Code Pub. Dt App or Patentee

NONPATENT LITERATURE DOCUMENTS

-   Chao, L., The Wall Street Journal, “Revamped bubble wrap loses its     pop” (July 2015)

Bubble wrap is commonly used by vendors as protection when wrapping boxed items. Such wrap is also used by those who send items through the mail or box valuables. Everybody knows bubble wrap. Quoting an internet history of bubble wrap, “The original material revolutionized the shipping industry and provided hours of irritating, popping fun to recipients along with their packages.” Bubble wrap's great notoriety, however, is also its unfortunate limitation that I hope to address below. Therefore, a portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work) protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever.

Originally, the intent of bubble wrap was practical. After initial attempts to create a bubbled shower curtain failed, Chavannes and Fielding tried to market a bubbled wallpaper and then a greenhouse insulation. It was not until a few years later that the fundamental idea of protective packaging occurred to them. Since then bubble wrap is seen as practical packaging to be discarded after a few annoying pops.

Thereafter, several ideas have arisen for more fun and casual uses of bubble wrap. These ideas have failed, however, to extricate bubble wrap from its typecast role as Irritating packing material. They have also failed to incentivize the purchase of it for a purpose other than packaging. Arnold discloses a square-framed hand-held portion and a sports stadium toilet paper-like roll-out for noise-making during games. However, these purposes offer little incentive for producers or consumers to produce or purchase bubble wrap. Delarosa shows a bubble wrap that contains scented bubbles. This idea does not suffice as a stand-alone or incentive to overcome bubble wrap's conceptualized role as packaging.

A shapeable bubble pack toy containing treats marginally extricates bubble wrap as packaging and addresses some psychological aspects of popping bubble wrap. It remains, however, essentially bubble wrap and has not shed its role. Moreover, the difficulty and expense of creating shapes becomes a disincentive to both producers and consumers. And Wiggins' inherent idea for bubble wrap as a toy, which is useful as a psychological placebo to alleviate tension and establish a responsive relationship with the toy user, still fails to separate bubble wrap as a thing in itself. It is still just bubble wrap! For Wiggins, the gift itself, inside the wrap, has little meaning. Rather it is the psychological effect of the wrap on the patient that is important.

Several other such toy ideas for bubble wrap have been offered including-for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,561 B1 to Hunter (2005) and: 20100143614 A1 to Holodny (2010). Somewhat different in intent, Hunter's bubble greeting card reinforces a greeting card's message by referencing the popping. Holodny's intent remains to make bubble wrap more desirable as a thing in itself by filling bubbles with glitter and confetti. However, bubbles as noise makers at sports stadia, as scent-filled, as psychological placebos, as greeting cards, and containing glitter do not free bubble wrap from its typecast role. My own PPA Ser. No. 62/247,227 (2015) describes a transformed role for bubble wrap and frees it from its former practical and somewhat irritating role. Additionally, Sealed Air Corporation (the producer of bubble wrap) has recently declared its intent to totally discontinue the use of pre-air-filled bubble wrap and replace it with a deflated model to be filled by vendors at the delivery site. This intent, noted in Chao, L., The Wall Street Journal, “Revamped bubble wrap loses its pop” (July 2015), suggests that none of the previous ideas to reinvent bubble wrap as a toy will restart the presses. The designs heretofore known suffer from a number of disadvantages:

-   -   (a) The previous ideas merely suggest alternative ways to make         the product bubble wrap attractive to pop. They basically all         say the same thing, i.e., “Here is the packaging you know as         bubble wrap. It remains bubble wrap but we have tried to         disguise it as something else.”     -   (b) The previous ideas call for major changes in production and         therefore production costs.     -   (c) None of the previous ideas has created a marketing interest         in either production or consumption.

The key to my idea is in understanding that the mindset of bubble wrap had to change for it to succeed as something other than packaging. I can imagine the inventors of bubble wrap, Chavannes and Fielding, staring into the garbage when they discarded their bubbled shower curtain and wall paper and saw packing material for the first time. Eureka They had discovered a new invention which had little or nothing to do with the intent of previous items. It was an old product but an entirely new idea, an entirely new context. Well, my wife and I had the same “Do you see what I see?” moment. It was when our grandchildren went wild opening birthday gifts that were randomly and wildly wrapped in bubble wrap. To them bubble wrap was no longer a protective device or an annoyance. They tore it apart and the adults in the room joined in and had a blast popping what we now call POPwrap™.

My idea is to fundamentally change the definition of bubble wrap from packaging to gift wrap material called POPwrap™. In order to reframe bubble wrap as something other than packing material, POPwrap™ flips the idea of bubble wrap from its previous typecast role to a new conceptualization and context. Bubble wrap is no longer a packaging material; it is now a wrapping material that is placed in an entirely different and appropriate setting, a celebration. In other words, it is “bubble wrap meets wrapping paper in an entirely new context.” This is a necessary transformation if bubble wrap is ever to escape its typecast role and become something new.

The problem with traditional wrapping paper is that it is expensive, it is far too big a worry relative to its importance to a gift, it leads to anxiety, it is often a waste, and it leaves a buyer's pride ignored. Traditional wrapping paper is irrelevant. Few receiving gifts notice the time, effort, money, and anxiety often involved with traditional gift wrap. My wife and I have been disappointed in the past that so few people seem to notice our efforts to make gift wrap relevant. Now, we are gratified to watch the pure joy and abandon children display when they receive and open gifts wrapped in POPwrap™ gift wrap. The reaction of the adults, too, is equally rewarding.

The solution to the traditional wrapping paper problem is spinning the traditional on its head. The solution is to make gift wrapping relevant and noticeable, relaxed and easy, inexpensive, casual, and fun for both giver and receiver. The solution to reorienting bubble wrap as packing material into POPwrap™ wrapping material is changing the context in which it is used. The old context has been as packing material being popped out of context, e.g., annoying noise makers at a baseball game; an out of context and meaninglessly subjective scented bubble wrap; odd-shaped candy containers for psychological therapy, greeting cards that attempt to magnify a message, and glittered bubble wrap that leaves a mess and kids disinterested and confused about the point of it. In the context of a party or a celebration, the meaning of the pops takes on a different orientation. Suddenly, the popping fits the occasion and everybody intuits the transformation. Suddenly everyone sees something different. This use of bubble wrap is significantly different from the prior art to be considered unobvious.

Part of the fun and ingenuity of this idea is that it changes the orientation of gift wrapping. No more worries about neatness and no more worries about expense. A wild and fun aspect of POPwrap™ gift wrap is that it overrides so many previous gift wrap concerns. With POPwrap™ gift wrap there would be no more worries about shopping for paper gift wrap, no more worries about supply on hand or the applicability of types, colors, designs, shapes, size, smell, sounds, gender-orientation or specific holiday to buy for. POPwrap™ gift wrap can be left plain or produced in any of these forms and custom-monogrammed as well for anyone or any occasion. Moreover, with POPwrap™ gift wrap there would be no more anxiety about which of the adults in the room noticed the wrapping material (they all notice POPwrap™!), and no more concerns about clean up. The flexibility of POPwrap™ gift wrap solves many of the old concerns and protects the gift, too!

POPwrap™ gift wrap also eliminates the taboo of overplaying with bubble wrap when it comes as packing in a box. Because its ostensible purpose has traditionally been packing, folks have visualized it as such. It has not, therefore, been freed up to be played with. In the past, adults and kids alike have played tentatively with bubble wrap, worrying not to become a nuisance or distraction. In our experiments we found the opposite effect. Adults and children alike were freed to play and pop bubbles with exuberance. When freed from previous taboos and licensed to play with POPwrap™ gift wrap they completely transformed in their new-found liberation. They played together inventing fun and innovative ways to pop bubbles. For instance, two of my grandsons became gunfighters, drawing imaginary pistols and squeezing off pops to insinuate gun fire. Then adults joined in and pretended to die right there on the driveway. With POPwrap™ gift wrap, there is almost a sense of licensed naughtiness that manifests in community taboo breaking. As soon as one realizes—first the intuitive kids and then their reserved but startled parents—that the POPwrap™ gift wrap is meant to be played with, he or she lets loose and plays free. Bubble wrap transformed into POPwrap™ and wrapped around a gift in a new context is a simple and unobvious new use idea.

At present I believe that this embodiment operates most efficiently, but the other embodiments are also satisfactory. POPwrap™ gift wrap can be left as it is, colored, patterned, multi-sized, sounded, and shaped. Holiday designs can be printed on POPwrap™ gift wrap and it can be rolled out in various lengths, sections, widths, and thicknesses. It can be wildly wrapped around gifts and be formed into bags, sealed and not, into which gifts can be dropped. POPwrap™ gift wrap can be sealed in any number of ways: with adhered tape, with hook and loop fasteners, with snaps, with a peel-off sticky or simply stapled or even heat-wrapped. POPwrap™ gift wrap eliminates the difficulty of wrapping irregular gifts such as stuffed animals (FIGS. 1-4, 6), basketballs, footballs, hockey sticks, stacks of books or any combination of these gifts. POPwrap™ gift wrap can even wrap gifts as big as bicycles. This is my presently preferred application of the device, but the other embodiments have other substantial applications.

SUMMARY

In accordance with one embodiment POPwrap™ gift wrap comprises a bubble wrap that is wrapped wildly and creatively around a gift and presented for children and adults to tear apart and pop in any number of ways. This use of POPwrap™ fundamentally changes the idea of bubble wrap from annoying packing material to fun and exciting wrapping paper. POPwrap™ gift wrap more appropriately fits bubble wrap into a context of celebration and thus transforms bubble wrap from an annoying packing material into a new, fun, and exciting POPwrap™ wrapping material.

Advantages

Accordingly, several advantages of one or more aspects are as follows: to provide an anxiety-free wrapping material the fun of which is in the change in the orientation of bubble wrap from a packing material to wrapping material, to eliminate the worry and anxiety of purchasing the proper or appropriate wrapping paper for gifts, to eliminate the worry and anxiety of clean up, to eliminate the time involved shopping for just the right paper, to eliminate the concern about wrapping a gift neat, to eliminate the difficulty of wrapping irregularly-shaped gifts, to eliminate the excessive cost of traditional wrapping paper, to make wrapping paper relevant, especially to children, and to bring an egalitarianism to wrapping material that lessens traditional wrapping paper snobbery.

DRAWINGS—FIGURES

FIG. 1 is an isometric perspective of the first embodiment as a simple horizontal wrap of POPwrap™ gift wrap around a gift.

FIG. 2 is an isometric perspective of a simple vertical wrap of POPwrap™ gift wrap around the same type gift.

FIG. 3 is a frontal perspective of a completely-wrapped gift. A colored or patterned wrap could hide the gift altogether.

FIG. 4 is a frontal perspective of a partially-wrapped, irregular-shaped gift with holes torn to allow a part of a gift to dangle out.

FIG. 5 is an isometric perspective of a roll of POPwrap™ with repeatable printed pattern.

FIG. 6 is an isometric drawing of FIG. 4 frontal perspective and the way we presented it in our experiment with the children but with a conceptualized pattern. It is a frontal perspective of the Pete the Cat stuffed animal wrapped in bubble wrap.

FIG. 7 shows a frontal conception of a POPwrap™ gift wrap bag into which a gift of any size can simply be dropped in and sealed.

FIG. 8 shows a frontal conception of a small POPwrap™ gift wrap bag which could be used as a goodie bag at parties and into which many small fun things can be dropped.

DRAWING—REFERENCE NUMERALS

10 Stuffed animal, Gruffalo, 12 POPwrap ™ wrapped enclosed by POPwrap ™ horizontally 14 POPwrap ™ wrapped 16 POPwrap ™ completely vertically wrapped 18 POPwrap ™ with bottom 20 POPwrap ™ with legs of gift holes torn out dangling out 22 POPwrap ™ roll with pattern 24 POPwrap ™ pattern, Dr. Seuss “Hop on Pop” 26 stuffed animal inside 28 POPwrap ™ stuffed animal's POPwrap ™ feet dangling 30 Gruffalo stuffed animal in 32 POPwrap ™ gift bag (large) POPwrap ™ gift bag 34 various candies/trinkets in 36 POPwrap ™ gift bag (small) POPwrap ™ gift bag

DETAILED DESCRIPTION—FIGS. 1 THROUGH 8

One embodiment of POPwrap™ is illustrated in FIG. 1 an isometric perspective of a simple horizontal wrap of POPwrap™ gift wrap around a gift. An upper portion 10 shows an irregular-shaped gift, the Gruffalo stuffed animal, which is approximately 1.5 feet tall and 1 foot wide. A lower portion 12 shows a bubble wrap (prior art) being wrapped horizontally around the same gift. One can decide how many layers he or she desires to use. The more or fewer kids at a party the more or less POPwrap™ gift wrap one might use.

FIG. 2 is an isometric perspective of a simple vertical wrap of POPwrap™ gift wrap around the same gift. The upper portion 14 shows a bubble wrap being wrapped vertically over the top of the Gruffalo. Any number of adhesives could bind the POPwrap™ strips: tape, a small clip, staples, snaps, or attached adhesive glue strips like those used on postal envelopes can hold the pieces together.

FIG. 3 is a frontal perspective of a completely-wrapped gift. A complete wrap 16 shows Gruffalo completely covered. One could simply use a single layer and leave a gift visible through clear POPwrap™ gift wrap, wind it round and round to make gifts opaque through the wrap or continue wrapping and make a gift completely invisible. A colored or patterned wrap could hide a gift altogether.

FIG. 4 is a frontal perspective of a partially-wrapped, irregular-shaped gift. The wrap 18 shows the stuffed animal, Pete the Cat, approximately 1 foot tall and 6 inches wide, wrapped but with holes torn in the bottom to allow the feet 20 to hang out as a tease. Holes can be torn easily with the fingers so concern for neatness and mistakes is substantially reduced.

FIG. 5 is an isometric perspective of a roll of POPwrap™ 22 with a design 24 (Dr. Seuss' “Hop on Pop” pattern) already printed on it. A pattern could simply be repeated on the POPwrap™ and rolled out on any size rolls. FIGS. 3, 4 and 6 also show how simple it is to just roll the POPwrap™ off the roll and around any gift of any size or shape.

FIG. 6 is a rendering of FIG. 4 but with a pattern in the material. It is an isometric perspective of the Pete the Cat stuffed animal wrapped in a bubble wrap. A nearly complete wrap 26 shows how one might punch holes 28 in POPwrap™ gift wrap to allow any part of a gift to be exposed. Inside this particular wrapped gift along with the Pete the Cat stuffed animal were three Pete the Cat hard cover books. POPwrap™ gift wrap makes gifts of all sizes and shapes very easy to wrap. Kids seem to view the gift within the POPwrap™ gift wrap as a “gift inside a gift.” As well, a boxed, mailed gift can arrive already wrapped, protected and, at the same time, ready to be presented as is.

FIG. 7 shows a conception of a POPwrap™ gift wrap bag 32 into which a gift 30 of any size can simply be dropped in and sealed. One can even bag a gift and then place that bag inside a bigger bag to provide more POPwrap™ gift wrap fun.

FIG. 8 shows a conception of a small POPwrap™ gift wrap bag 36 which could be used as a goodie bag at parties and into which many small fun things 34 can be dropped.

Operation—FIGS. 1-6

One or more aspects of POPwrap™ gift wrap have these advantages.

In the operation of POPwrap™ gift wrap one uses a bubble wrap in a very casual manner, wrapping neat or haphazard. One can use a sparse amount or as much as desired. One can wrap the bubble wrap around in circles as he or she would wind a ball of string or first wrap it around horizontally and then vertically. The more kids at a party the greater amount can be wrapped around a gift or gifts in order to give all of the kids a chance to tear off a piece and have fun popping. One could simply slip a gift into a POPwrap™ gift wrap bag, seal it, hand it over or slip it under the tree at Christmas time. One can punch holes in POPwrap™ gift wrap to allow parts of a gift 20, 28 (FIGS. 4, 6) to dangle out. Additionally, the tearing of holes to allow parts to dangle out also announces informality with POPwrap™ that is needed given the former concerns of both bubble wrap and wrapping paper. We have heard so often at parties, “Oh, save the wrapping paper, it's so beautiful.” Often, sensitive people do not want to offend gift-givers by savagely tearing off the wrapping paper. Moreover, POPwrap™ gift wrap fun can be heightened by leaving a gift outside in any weather to be found by the lucky recipient or even delivered by flying postal drones without concern for safety.

In our first experiment we wrapped conservatively and the kids got on the kitchen floor and popped small pieces of bubble wrap they ripped from the wrapped gift. In our subsequent experiment 26 we used approximately 6 feet of bubble wrap or 3 feet wrapped horizontally and 3 feet wrapped vertically (FIG. 6). The kids took the two sheets, laid them on the driveway and started walk-popping them. Other kids ripped off pieces and went into corners alone to pop. Adults picked up stray pieces and popped, commenting how even they love it, and the hosts left all the popped scraps where they lay as if the mess no longer mattered. The scraps appeared to lay as tribute to new-found fun for everyone. Something very different happened that day and everyone noticed.

After using POPwrap™ gift wrap and watching the pure joy it brings, purchasing traditional gift wrap seems a thing of the past. POPwrap™ gift wrap turns the orientation of both traditional bubble wrap and gift wrap on their heads and the new use makes wrapping gifts liberating and fun.

FIGS. 7-8—Additional Embodiments

Additional embodiments are shown in FIGS. 7 and 8; in each the POPwrap™ is formed into bags with or without sealability. POPwrap™ bags can be pre-made or formed by simply folding up a piece of POPwrap™ back on itself and taping or stapling the sides and top (like folding a piece of writing paper in half and taping the sides to make an envelope of sorts.

CONCLUSION, RAMIFICATIONS AND SCOPE

Accordingly, the reader will quickly see that POPwrap™ gift wrap or the new use of a prior art bubble wrap, changes the orientation from annoying and naughty packaging material to a fun and exciting wrapping material without the stress, cost or concern of traditional wrapping paper. In addition, POPwrap™ allows children and adults to have fun again with wrapping material. Kids go wild with taboo breaking when they intuit rather quickly that a change has taken place and that a formerly naughty activity has just been made allowable. When parents join in, the dynamic of gift wrap is flipped on its head. Furthermore, POPwrap™ has the additional advantages in that:

-   -   makes wrapping gifts a stress-free, inexpensive, and egalitarian         pleasure     -   eliminates shopping time, worry about appropriateness, gender         specifications, and snobbery     -   reorients the idea of popping bubbles as an annoyance into an         exciting license to be naughty     -   allows for wild freedom and taboo breaking     -   creates community fun between children and adults     -   eliminates anxiety about who notices the quality of the wrapping         material     -   protects the gift     -   flexibility of use     -   eliminates adult anger at popping noise     -   changes look of bubble wrap to beautiful and appropriate designs     -   makes traditional “invisible” wrapping paper relevant again     -   many innovative games can be created for POPwrap™     -   eliminates clean-up worry and bulk mess     -   no waste, just wrap it wildly, every bubble gets popped     -   no under cuts, over cuts or patterns to match as with         traditional wrapping paper

While my above description contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope, but rather as an exemplification of several embodiments thereof. Many other variations are possible. For example: POPwrap™ eliminates for department stores, book stores, and gift stores the need for expensive and complex gift wrap services. Store clerks can wrap any odd-shaped gift as sloppy as one wraps a mummy for Halloween. POPwrap™ wrapping material patterns can range from plain to infant yellow ducks to Van Gogh's Starry Night to holiday images such as Christmas, birthday, and Chanukah. It could imbed children or family names and photos, book cover images (even of the wrapped books themselves) or personalized and special orders for anniversaries. Accordingly, the scope should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents. 

I claim:
 1. A new use comprising a bubble wrap as a means of exterior wrapping material for wrapping and enclosing any gift.
 2. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material as a means of exterior wrapping material is composed of variations of a bubble wrap as wrapping material.
 3. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material composed of variations of a bubble wrap is wrapped around the exterior of any gift and presented as a wrapping material.
 4. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material is wrapped around the exterior of any gift contains the means to wrap and enclose any gift of any size.
 5. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material contains the means to wrap and enclose gifts of any size consists of a bubble wrap with popable air bubbles.
 6. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material with said popable air bubbles has design patterns on the material.
 7. The wrapping material of claim 1 wherein said wrapping material has design patterns on the material is comprised of various lengths, widths, pieces, colors, designs, sounds, and shapes.
 8. The wrapping material of claim 7 wherein said wrapping material is comprised of various lengths, widths, pieces, colors, designs, sounds, and shapes is formed into bags of various sizes, sealable and open.
 9. The wrapping material of claim 7 wherein said wrapping material is comprised of bags of various sizes, sealable and open is sealed any number of ways including: adhesive tape, loop fasteners, peel-off stickies, staples, and by heat wrapping.
 10. The wrapping material of claim 7 wherein said wrapping material is formed into bags of various sizes, sealable and open, can be torn to allow gift parts to extend outward to increase interest. 